


working to fit the mold

by ncfan



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Attraction Mixed With Jealousy, F/F, F/M, Gen, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, Past Child Abuse, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8833153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: “I knew about her long before Rudolf-san even knew her name.”It would be easier if he would just look at her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [CN/TW: Depictions of physical and verbal abuse; moments touching on what in canon is implied to be Kyrie’s unhealthy relationship with food at this point in time]

_“I knew about her long before Rudolf-san even knew her name.”_

-0-0-0-

_That girl sure does hang around late._

Kyrie is looking over reports, chewing absently on the stem of her glasses. Mother would have a fit if she could see it, but Mother isn’t _here_ , and Kyrie never did bother to give her family her work number. Must have slipped her mind, sorry, Mother, or so she’ll say if her mother ever has reason to call her at work, and can’t get through. Father would tell her it’s late, her eyes are straining and morning will be here soon enough, so why don’t you head home and get some sleep, Kyrie? And if you’re not going to sleep, why don’t you at least eat the plate of noodles you fixed an hour ago, even if they’re stone-cold? You might not be hungry, but you can’t stay up all night on no food. Something has to give, Kyrie.

But Father isn’t here, either, and Kyrie can’t remember the last time his voice—ostensible head of the family he might be—was able to pierce the words put forward by her mother and her aunts to have any real weight. She wonders briefly if for him, talking with his children is like trying to scream into a typhoon. Does futility coat his tongue like poison when he looks into the storm, hears the raging wind and realizes that his voice is utterly unequal? Kyrie shoots one look at the locked office door at the top of the stairs, and her mouth twists. Father has her sympathy, even if their situations aren’t exactly the same. What help is there for a man who doesn’t want to listen?

( _And why should I eat if I can’t even keep it down?_ )

A sticky summer night has settled outside. The street lamps lit up one by one about an hour ago, attracting swarms of mosquitoes and moths, which an enterprising bird has been swooping down upon from time to time. Inside, the air feels stagnant and dank without a breeze for respite, and the faintly humming lights are unequal to the task of extinguishing the shadows that come creeping under the door. Outside, the windows into other businesses have gone dark, but they’re still burning the midnight oil here, and occasionally, Kyrie looks up and sees a pair of giggling teenagers walk by on their way to restaurants, night clubs, hotels, their eyes bright and faces flushed.

Refreshingly, none of Rudolf’s girls came poking around the office today. Kiyomi and Yuuka seem content to stake out Rudolf’s favorite nightclubs and make the occasional annoying phone call during work hours. Midoriko hasn’t shown her face around here, hasn’t breathed a single irritating word since Kyrie took her aside for a friendly chat a few weeks ago. Good. Midoriko was getting obnoxious; it’s nice to know she took their talk to heart.

 _I might talk to Kiyomi-san and Yuuka-san if they come around here again,_ Kyrie muses as she rifles through the folders laid out on the table. _It’s well past time Rudolf-san figured out how to be a one-woman kind of man._

Of course, no matter what she does, she can’t get rid of all of Rudolf’s fans. Her man is too popular by half. Case in point: the woman flitting around the windows now, adjusting the blinds and making sure all the latches are locked, the heels of her shoes making a light click on the linoleum floor with each step.

Kyrie hired Asumu to work here a little over two months ago. She and Rudolf were in need of someone who could take calls, schedule appointments, type up copies or reports and send out letters and newsletters. Asumu is all smiles with clients and holds a smile in her voice whenever she talks on the phone. Her memory is good enough that she doesn’t need to consult a calendar to make sure two appointment times don’t conflict. She types faster than anyone Kyrie has ever met, her delicately manicured fingers flying over the typewriter.

Inevitably, Asumu noticed Rudolf, and Kyrie had to roll her eyes to see the way that girl started to fawn over him. Here’s another woman who seriously thinks she can take Rudolf away from Kyrie, who’s come fluttering around him like one of the moths flitting around the lamps outside. _Careful, girl; you’ll get burned if you fly in too close. I ought to warn you, though; it’s not that man who’ll burn you._

What makes Asumu’s attentions laughable rather than threatening or even irritating is that Rudolf seems not to have noticed her at all, not the way he notices women who catch his fancy. She just isn’t his type. Oh, Asumu’s pretty, there’s no denying that—tall and slender, yet still possessing feminine curves, her curling hair a glossy honey blonde, eyes the color of green jade and pink lips forming a perfect Cupid’s bow, set in a soft, oval face. She has a high, sweet voice, the kind that makes you sad when it goes quiet. Kyrie purses her lips as she watches, silently, Asumu fiddle with a window latch, blurred though her sight might be with her glasses off. Asumu’s a pretty girl, certainly.

But she’s so far from being Rudolf’s type that she’s not even orbiting around the right planet for him to get caught in her gravity. Asumu coos and fawns like the others, but there’s no fire in her, no venom dripping from her teeth. That man doesn’t like mild, kittenish women—he likes women with blood dripping from their talons from where they’ve been scratching at each other to get his attention.

 _And none of you have got what it takes to keep his attention for long. Do you know, he never asks about any of you once you’re gone? He just assumes you’ve flitted off to your next man, like a butterfly trying to feed off as many flowers as she can before the wind breaks her wings. That man needs a partner, not a giggling girl who clings to his arm and doesn’t know the first thing about running a business_. Certainly, a partner’s the only sort of woman who can keep Rudolf on track. It would be nice if he could see that.

As for Asumu, she doesn’t even dress like the sort of flashy girl Rudolf likes. Today, it was… Kyrie bites back a sigh and slides her glasses back up her nose. Today it was a short-sleeved lavender dress, the collar wide and high across Asumu’s collarbone, the skirt hanging just below her knees. The dress is two-layered, and the upper layer is stiff and eyeleted, rustling with each step Asumu takes across the floor.

“Asumu-san,” Kyrie calls out, her lips sugared with a saccharine smile. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you go home?” She can get Rudolf down out of the office, can get him to try to work again, just a little more tonight. She knows she can do that if she just tries. But having Asumu here, watching on…

Asumu’s almost girlishly small hands flutter in the air in front of her as she shakes her head. “Oh, no, I can’t!” Even expressing disbelief, her voice is as sweet as caramel; the fine hairs on Kyrie’s arms prickle uncomfortably. “I’m supposed to lock up, remember? I can’t leave until you and Ushiromiya-san do.”

That was in the contract; Kyrie does remember. _At least somebody around here doesn’t shy away from work, but you could stand to care a little less._ “I don’t think Rudolf-san’s coming out of that office for a while.” Kyrie’s mouth contorts in a bitter smile, in spite of herself. “Unless you just want to stay here all night, you shouldn’t wait for him. I’ll make sure the doors are all locked.”

Asumu doesn’t go for her purse. She doesn’t move an inch from where she stands, at that window by the door. Her brow furrows, and she fiddle with a glittery little ring on her right hand. “I heard the two of you fighting earlier,” she admits in a whisper. “It wasn’t… I mean… It wasn’t anything too serious, was it?”

Any of Rudolf’s other girls would have lapped up whatever could be heard of Kyrie and Rudolf arguing earlier. A rift _is_ an opening after all. For all that Asumu is far too meek and kittenish for Rudolf’s tastes, even a kitten has its claws. Kyrie irons out her smile. “No, nothing serious. That man just doesn’t want to do his work if he thinks it’s too hard. He’s just sulking right now.”

The look on Asumu’s face is hardly one of a woman reassured. “I’ll go see if he’s alright,” she murmurs, making a beeline for the staircase. As she passes by, Kyrie catches a whiff of her perfume—some flowery scent, maybe rose, maybe freesia (Kyrie is not expert on that kind of thing), sweet without being cloying. It lingers in the air.

She doesn’t bother watching Asumu traverse the stairs. What can that girl do? Kyrie would be very surprised if Asumu even has a fraction of the will needed to insist that Rudolf get back to work, let alone argue with him about it. Kyrie would be even more surprised if Asumu has ever raised her voice to anyone, ever. She probably doesn’t know how.

_My mother could teach you some things, girl—if you survived the first lesson, anyways. I’m not sure you would._

But Kyrie does look up, her small, musing smile replaced with a frown, when she hears the creak of a door opening. She looks up just in time to see Asumu slip inside, and Rudolf shut the door behind her. Rudolf doesn’t look at Kyrie, gives not so much as a nod of acknowledgement to her.

Kyrie stares up at the door, something hard and bitter roiling in her stomach. She imagines it, Rudolf hunched over in his chair as he was when she left him, his tie half-undone and his shirt collar crumpled, hands fisted in his hair. She imagines it, Asumu standing over him, saying something (Kyrie doesn’t know what), her hair gleaming like polished gold and the shadows clinging to the hollow of her neck like a lover’s touch.

If he let that girl in, surely he’ll let Kyrie in. If his will has weakened to the point that meek little Asumu can get him to open his door, Kyrie should have no problem. But somehow, that closed door that ought to represent a weakened barrier, it looks stronger than ever.

 _It’s telling me to stay away, that I need to back off_.

That hard, bitter feeling in Kyrie’s stomach grows and grows harder still, until she feels as though she could vomit.

-0-0-0-

The endless refrain, muttered like a prayer: Ushiromiya Rudolf needs a partner, not a hanger-on. He needs a woman who is his intellectual equal, who can serve as a business partner as well as a lover. In bed, Kyrie allows that she is likely little different from any other woman. She’s flesh and blood and bone. But a pretty face and a good-looking body is _all_ the other woman have going for them. Kyrie has something more, and that’s why she’s the only woman in Rudolf’s life who isn’t “easy come, easy go” to him. It’s why she’s the only one who’ll last.

“Come on, Asumu; we can get off the bus now.”

Rudolf must have decided he needed a change in the kind of girl he picks to be his girl of the week. Taking a break from flashy girls? Well, at least Asumu probably won’t try to milk him for every last banknote in his wallet like some of the others did a while back.

She won’t last long, any more than the flashy girls ever did. Give it a few weeks, a couple of months at most, and Asumu will show up to work one day with puffy eyes and a raw voice. Or maybe she’ll quit. Kyrie isn’t certain which one she’d like better. Spending every day with the competition doesn’t sound too appealing, but Asumu’s not likely to prove serious competition, and Kyrie would like to keep an eye on her. To get the scope of what Rudolf’s next ‘type’ might be, she tells herself.

But in the meantime, it looks like Kyrie is going to have to put up with certain… idiosyncrasies.

The bus has stopped moving. It stopped moving a while ago, and the driver is casting backwards glances at them, his mouth starting to curl in a scowl. And there’s Asumu, curled up on the floor of the bus still, her eyes screwed shut and her shoulders shaking, skirt hiked up around her thighs, her makeup starting to run a little thanks to the think track of tears running down her cheeks—all-around disheveled.

Is it motion sickness? Some sort of trauma or phobia? Kyrie can’t say for certain—she certainly has no desire to _ask_. Whatever it is, it rendered Asumu unable to handle riding on a bus like an adult, instead cowering on the floor like a little child.

That Rudolf is trying to comfort Asumu, calm her down, that doesn’t surprise Kyrie too much. He’s always eaten stuff like this up; one of the girls trips, stumbles or shrieks at an insect flying too close to her head, and he’s right there. Her man fancies himself a knight in shining armor, Kyrie knows. He was even more solicitous of her for a few months after Kyrie showed up wearing glasses for the first time and he figured out that she’s near-sighted.

 _She might even be doing this just to get his attention_ , Kyrie wonders to herself. _Asumu-san’s no genius, but even the dumbest girls hanging around Rudolf-san have a certain crude cunning. She’s probably seen the way he acts when he spots a woman in trouble._

Kyrie can almost smile. _It’s not a bad trick, girl, but it’s not going to work forever. Screaming and crying’s going to lose its appeal pretty quickly, and where will you be then? Stuff like that’s never worked for any of the girls, either, not for long. Deep down, Rudolf-san likes a woman who can keep up with him without help best of all_.

Still, that doesn’t mean Kyrie ever likes watching Rudolf hovering over the girl of the week all that much. Even when she knows that what stokes his protective side this week will be too much of a hassle the next, something in her stomach curdles. _My family would have eaten him alive. You don’t get too far playing into tricks like these in the Sumadera clan._

“Do you need any help with her, Rudolf-san?” Kyrie asks quietly, and the smile comes to her lips easily, so easily. Getting down off of the bus as soon as possible will be better for everyone, not least the bus driver, who’s started tapping his watch meaningfully. Maybe sitting down on a sidewalk bench will put a stopper on the soft moans that occasionally pass Asumu’s lips.

Rudolf looks up at her from the floor. He glances back at Asumu for a moment, brow furrowed (Kyrie wants to shake his shoulders and tell him to snap out of it, but he’s never appreciated it when she tries to enlighten him; he never wants to listen to sense), before locking eyes with Kyrie. “Just go wait outside, Kyrie. We’ll be out in a minute.”

“Alright, then.”

Rudolf doesn’t need a millstone around his neck. He doesn’t need a woman who will cling to him and shake and wail every time they go somewhere. That feeling of being needed sure does stoke his ego. Kyrie knows how it must feel; feeling needed is a wonderful high for her. But in the end, sense always wins out, and he always picks the woman who can keep up with him. Her man knows he needs a partner, deep down (And what a wonderful high that knowledge is). Someone who can be more than just a housewife who contributes nothing but warm meals and a warm body. He never falls for the fleeting charms of girls like Asumu, not forever.

They come down off the bus together, Rudolf’s arm slung around Asumu’s shoulder, his other hand braced on her left elbow. Asumu is holding a hand up to her forehead, and her face is sickly pale. He is too solicitous by half, and her too pretty, even with her eyes puff and her makeup running. Even like that, Asumu manages beauty easily, and Kyrie feels like clawing at the strap of her purse.

-0-0-0-

Sometimes, in the dark, quiet hours when thin slivers of light are shifting over her bedroom wall and there comes a faint clatter of footsteps out in the hall, Kyrie is a child again in her mind.

As a child, Kyrie’s mother is determined to teach her composure. The lessons come at random— _“You never know when you’re going to need to be composed, Kyrie; real life isn’t going to be kind to you, so why should I wait until morning?”_ —and her mother doesn’t care if they interfere with Kyrie’s other lessons, any more than she cares if Kyrie’s trying to sleep. Kyrie’s mother might have to defer to her husband in public, might have to be _seen_ to defer to him, but it is she who controls the way their daughters are raised, and she will brook no contradiction from anyone, not in this.

There is a room set aside for the lessons. It is small and bare—no windows, no wall hangings, no furniture or tatami on the rough slats—except for a mirror. The mirror stands six feet tall and two across. It is old, scratched glass set in old, warped wood, but for the content of these lessons, it serves its purpose well enough.

 _“You are a woman of the Sumadera, and what’s more, you are the heir._ ” In her reveries, Kyrie’s mother is brandishing that old oak rod, polished and sanded so it can never leave a splinter in anything it touches. The first time Kyrie ever sees it, she eyes it with curiosity; afterwards, her stomach roils at the sight of it. _“No matter what happens to you, you ought to be able to smile composed, and act as though it doesn’t affect you at all. That is the level of dignity that will be required of you, every day.”_

The routine going in is the same, every time. If Kyrie is wearing a skirt or a kimono, she is to hold it up above her knees. If trousers, they drop and are discarded in the far corner of the room from the door. The first time, Kyrie smiles into the mirror, and thinks she knows what’s about to happen. She thinks she just has to hold a smile even when anticipating something awful.

When the rod strikes home on the tender flesh on the back of her calf, when it leaves a burning welt, she jumps and yelps.

 _“I said ‘smile,’ girl!”_ her mother snarls, her fingernails digging like talons into Kyrie’s shoulder as she jerks her back into place. _“Are you too stupid to understand even that much?!”_

Sometimes, it’s three blows. Sometimes, five. Sometimes seven, or nine or thirteen or twenty, or sometimes just one. Sometimes, she alternates between hard blows and soft touches, and sometimes it’s only the hard. Sometimes, the rod doges to the calves, sometimes the thighs, and sometimes both. Sometimes Kyrie bleeds, and sometimes she doesn’t.

Kasumi can always tell when Mother’s been at it with the oak rod. She takes one look at Kyrie’s ginger, shuffling gait and titters before sweetly asking, “ _Oh, have you and Mother been talking?”_ She is the younger daughter. The only burdens on her are to not do anything that could cause a scandal, and to marry well, if she can. She carries no burden of pain.

As Kyrie gets older, the lessons grow more infrequent. Maybe it’s because Kyrie manages to smile all the way through more frequently, even if her teeth are clenched so tightly that she feels as though her jaw might shatter into a thousand wet, flesh-covered pieces. Maybe it’s because the pain’s stopped making her vomit the next time she eats. Maybe it’s because she’s stopped crying afterwards. Maybe it’s because Kyrie’s high school uniform bares enough skin that the teachers might notice the welts and the mottled bruising. Maybe it’s because Kyrie’s gotten big enough that at least in theory, she could rip that rod out of her mother’s hands and beat some composure into her with it. Whatever the reason, Kyrie’s mother puts the rod away, and footsteps out in the hall at night are no longer a constant source of dread.

When Kyrie’s mother finds out that her precious heir has thrown her virginity away, and not even on an eldest son, the rod comes out again for the first time in seven, maybe eight years. The blows come down swift and vicious across calves and thighs as the woman spews invective that all runs together in Kyrie’s head—“stupid whore” stands out the most of all of it, almost more for ‘stupid’ than for ‘whore.’  Kyrie’s mother swings the rod until she’s slumped over on the floor, and the backs of Kyrie’s legs have been rendered bloody mush. They have to take Kyrie to the hospital for treatment, and she smiles all the time, even as the screams build in her throat.

-0-0-0-

Kyrie is not one to forget the lessons of her childhood, especially those lessons bought with pain. She remembers: _smile_ , and don’t let that scream pass your lips.

They’ve been like this for weeks, the two of them together, all sweet smiles and low laughs and long, meaningful looks. They avoid anything more risqué than brushing up against each other at work, except for the occasional moment of Asumu craning her neck to kiss Rudolf on the cheek. Maybe Asumu’s too shy about it in a public space, or maybe her sense of professionalism won’t allow for it, or maybe Rudolf’s growing out of that phase of life.

 _But who knows what they do when he locks them in his office._ She’d like to shove that thought away, but analyzing a situation thoroughly is too deeply ingrained in Kyrie for her to stop doing it now. _Just because you can’t hear anything doesn’t mean nothing’s happening. He always draws the blinds shut. He could be bending her over the desk, for all you know, and they just keep their mouths shut._

Memory draws Kyrie irresistibly to a story Rudolf once told her, with a wry, faintly mocking smile on his face. His mother, denied entry into his father’s study, and stuck hovering outside the door while his father plays chess with one of the servants. His mother, working herself up into such a frenzy that she hurls a heavy vase at the door and slumps on the floor sobbing even as the water slowly dribbles down the wood and into the rug. And to his father, it may as well be as though the whole world outside the study has melted away. Certainly the man’s wife isn’t worth paying attention to.

This will pass. Rudolf isn’t his father, and Kyrie isn’t the woman who could, with some tweaking, be her mother-in-law. Rudolf always tires of those other women. They can’t hold his attention for long; that man needs a _partner_ , not a woman who can’t do anything but cling to his arm and laugh at his jokes. Kyrie’s the only women with any staying power. She’s the only one who’s ever lasted more than a few months. She’s the only one who will ever last more than a few months. This isn’t anything to worry about. This will pass.

But…

_If I could just figure out what it is about her. There has to be something, has to be a reason she caught Rudolf-san’s eye, even if she isn’t his type of woman. There has to be some common element, something she has in common with the other girls._

She can’t get rid of Asumu. She can’t persuade her to leave Rudolf alone, by any means. If Asumu was one of the women who haunts Rudolf’s favorite nightclubs, it would be easy. He never notices when they stop hanging around him, after all; he always just assumes that they’ve moved on to the next rich man available. But he sees Asumu every day. If she just abruptly quit her job, he’d notice, and while Rudolf might not concern himself overmuch with the loss of his latest inamorata, the hassle involved in having to replace a secretary at such short notice would draw his attention.

_Look at me. I am the only woman you need. I wish you’d realize that. I know you like your pleasures, but you’re not a little boy anymore; a grown man commits to one woman, and just one. Look at me._

He’s not looking at her. He’s never really looking at her. Her mother sees her heir, her father the oldest daughter who doesn’t listen to him, her sister the stick in the mud who makes her look bad by comparison. Rudolf sees… Kyrie doesn’t know what he sees. He’s too busy looking at Asumu.

What Kyrie would like to do is take that woman and peel her apart until she finds what it is that has Rudolf hooked. Rip her clothes from her body, yank her jewelry from her neck and hands, scrub her makeup off of her face, the perfume off of her neck and the sweet-smelling shampoo out of her hair. She wonders, will Asumu look the same as any woman like that, or will there be something there that explains all of this. Strip off her clothes, her skin, her fat and muscles and internal organs, cut it all off until nothing but bones is left, and Kyrie might not find anything. It might not be anything that can be grasped in the hand, whatever it is that keeps Rudolf’s eyes on Asumu (Whatever keeps Kyrie staring). Kyrie might do this, and never get any answers.

_It would make me feel better. At least it would get rid of her. At least she wouldn’t be hanging around anymore. At least I wouldn’t have to think about her, wouldn’t have to see her, wouldn’t have to—_

“What does he see in that girl?” Kyrie mutters over the coffee pot in the break room. She clenches the edge of the countertop as hard as she can. She hasn’t been able to keep any food down since the day before last; anger and tension rarely allows her much enjoyment of her meals. For all of her experience thoroughly analyzing a situation, she can’t see it. Can’t see it, can’t see it, _Are you blind, girl?,_ she seems to hear, her mother’s voice penetrating even in her absence, _your eyes might be weak but they still function; use them and look,_ look _, girl. If you’re telling me you can’t figure it out, then what good are you?_

She grinds her teeth. “What does he see in her?”

“I think you know.”

Kyrie’s head snaps up, and she scans the doorway of the break room and the hall outside for any sign that Asumu had been there—the click of her shoes on the linoleum, the stiff rustle of her skirt, the sweet fragrance of her perfume. There’s nothing.

 _I just…_ Kyrie curls her fingers around the glass of the coffee pot, barely registering the heat. _…I just need to have more confidence. Just forget about that girl. Forget about everything but being the sort of woman Rudolf-san needs._


End file.
